by Michele Hauf
“I heard him say ‘it’s about time’ while I was hovering overhead. The man knows what he’s hunting,” Kelyn said. “The question is, how does he know, and why the hunt?”
“To bag a werewolf,” Trouble offered. “Idiot humans don’t need any better reason than that. But now...” He glanced over a shoulder at Beck. “I bet that hunter’s sights have been set higher. Fuck, man, you pack a punch as that creature. Excellent challenge, I must say. You got me good.”
“I wasn’t trying to get you, good or otherwise.” Beck started down the trail toward the vehicles behind the brothers. “I wanted to get that bastard.”
“You pushed his weapons out of the way,” Kelyn said. “You saved my brothers.”
Beck waved that suggestion off with a dismissive gesture. They’d fucked this one up, and now the hunter would not stop until he’d gotten his prey.
Back at the trucks, Beck jumped into his and fired up the engine.
“Where you headed?” Trouble asked.
He didn’t reply. He’d had enough of the group approach.
“You can’t do this on your own, man!” Trouble called.
The dark one shook his head and said, “Let him go.”
And with that, Beck drove off. He avoided driving by the hunter’s property again. The man wouldn’t have returned home yet with his snowmobile a loss. He’d have to walk. Might make it back by nightfall.
And by nightfall Beck hoped to return.
* * *
Daisy had just arrived at Beck’s house to find he wasn’t home. She and Bella had decided the gentle approach to getting Beck to return to the faery might work.
Just when she thought to hop in her car and call a brother to see if they were still out hunting, or possibly had stopped for a drink afterward, Beck’s truck pulled up the driveway.
She laughed at herself for thinking her brothers would have a drink with Beck. Beck would probably suspect they were greasing him up for the slaughter. Her brothers meant well. And the fact they’d gone to help Beck look for the hunter only proved that. They’d accepted him in their own way.
How to adjust her father’s attitude about the lone wolf?
Beck charged out of his truck toward where she stood at the front door. Daisy sensed the anger wavering off him like steam after a shower. She stepped down onto the shoveled sidewalk because it felt wrong to stand on the step, higher than him. She wanted to show him respect, an innate wolf quality.
“What are you doing here, Daisy?” he asked as he walked by her and shoved the key into the door lock.
No hello kiss? No hug?
Though she wore a winter coat and her kitty-eared cap and gloves, Daisy rubbed her arms. She wasn’t cold, just...
“What did I do?” she asked. “Beck, are you mad at me?”
Shoving the front door open, he turned and slid his eyes over her face. Just when she thought he would soften and pull her in for that hug and kiss, he gritted his jaws.
“Didn’t it go well with my brothers?”
“They let the hunter go.”
“What?”
“Your brothers...” He fisted the air. “I don’t want to talk about it. I’m...not in the best mood. I think you should leave.”
“But, Beck—”
“Daisy.” He grabbed her by her shoulders as a father would a child. “Don’t you understand how dangerous it is for you to be around me? I don’t want to hurt you.”
“Yes, but—what happened with my brothers? Tell me.”
Jaw tight, he finally blew out a breath and confessed, “They saw me shift to the ghost wolf.”
“Shit.”
“They took it well enough, but damn it, the hunter got away. They wouldn’t let me go after him.”
“Or were they protecting a human from a ghost wolf who might kill it?”
He squeezed her arms tightly. Grimaced. Then let her go. “Right. You would think that.”
“Beck, they were saving you from yourself. You can’t continue to shift to the ghost wolf—”
“Leave,” he insisted.
His tone was curt. Final. So he was in a bad mood and didn’t want to talk? She could stand up to a grumpy man any day.
But when he turned to show her his teeth, canines down, Daisy stumbled backward, stepping off the sidewalk onto the snowy bank. She almost toppled, but caught herself.
“Go!” he said. “Get the hell away from me!”
With no words to reply, Daisy rushed to her car and got inside. Heartbeat frantic, she fumbled to turn the key in the ignition. Beck stood on the steps watching as she backed out the driveway. And only when she turned onto the main road did she see his front door close.
“He may be a lone wolf, but he sure likes to work the alpha vibes,” she muttered. “Stupid, angry wolf.”
Intellectually she knew he probably needed time alone to work off some steam, to come down from the weirdness she suspected the ghost wolf worked on him every time he shifted. He had a lot to deal with. The hunter who had killed his father was out there, and he had been close enough to...
Would he have killed the hunter had her brothers not been there to stop him?
Daisy shook her head, not wanting to believe Beck capable of murder.
But it wasn’t Beck she had to worry about. It was the ghost wolf.
* * *
Malakai Saint-Pierre dialed up his son Stryke because he knew he had plans to meet Daisy this morning. It was evening, but she hadn’t been at her place. “Stryke? Your mom wanted me to pick up some things at the store, so I stopped by to look in on Daisy. She’s not home. You see her today?”
“Uh, this morning for breakfast?”
That was a strange kind of nonanswer that had ended on a questioning tone. What was the kid hiding? Stryke was the siblings’ confidante, and he was damned good at keeping secrets. “So where is she now?”
“I uh...haven’t any idea, Dad.”
Evasive? Hmm...Kai could always tell when his children were hiding something, or trying to protect one another. Which they’d managed with flair while growing up. And just because they were adults now didn’t mean they’d stopped the group protection ploys.
“You sure you haven’t the tiniest guess at where your sister could be?”
“Nope.”
“Fine. Talk to you later, Stryke.”
Kai hung up and swung the car around at the corner. He had a damned good idea where to find his daughter.
* * *
He’d hated treating Daisy like that. The moment her car had reached the end of his driveway, Beck had wanted to rush out and chase after her, beg her to forgive him and give him a second chance.
But he wasn’t stupid. The last thing he wanted was to hurt Daisy. And right now, he was so wound up in trying not to shift to the ghost wolf that it was all he could do to keep it back.
So Beck had gone out back, just off the snow-covered patio where he’d laid out stones last summer to form another patio around a fire pit. A punching bag hung from the oak tree, and he pummeled it with his fists. Stripped to the waist, he worked so furiously that the sweat didn’t have time to freeze.
He beat the bag soundly, kicking it, imagining it as the hunter. So long as he kept physical, moving his body, engaging his muscles and mind, the ghost wolf kept back, seeming satisfied with this workout.
His father had helped him hang this punching bag. Severo had been the first to try it out, giving it a good kick and then remarking that he was getting too old for the physical stuff.
Beck had laughed and clapped his father across the back. He was stronger than his son, but Severo did like to spend most of his time hanging around Bella. He would have been proud to know his wife was carrying his second child.
Another punch set the chain jangling as the bag bounced in the air and fell heavily. The solid oak branch creaked.
What would he do with a little brother? Or sister? How would that child’s life be affected, growing up without a father? It didn’t seem fair. It wasn’t fair. A
nd Beck certainly had no idea how to lead someone younger, to show them a good example and raise them right.
Maybe his mom could find a new husband? No. He didn’t want that for the family, or for Mom. She would mourn Severo for a long time, he suspected. As would he.
Because he did mourn. He felt his father’s loss in his gut, and his head, and his broken heart.
“Not broken,” he muttered as he delivered a punishing kick to the bag. “Can’t be. I won’t let it be!”
So maybe he hadn’t moved through the grief as he’d convinced himself he had. Screw it. He was tough. He could handle this. Because he had to. He was the last standing Severo man.
He hadn’t heard the approach, but now he smelled the intruder. Beck swung around and charged the man, who stood not ten feet away. He shoved his shoulders and pinned him against a wide oak trunk. Growling and showing his thick canines to the man, Beck didn’t even blink when he realized who it was.
Malakai Saint-Pierre smirked, then narrowed his brows. His face changed from the surprise of the attack to a determined expression indicative of a deadly predator.
“Come at me, boy,” Kai challenged. “Let’s see what you’ve got.”
Chapter 23
Shoving away from the older, stronger wolf, Beck did not stand down. Instead he put up his fists and growled. How dare the man show up at his home—on his private property—without an invite?
He swung a fist. Kai dodged it with a taunting chuckle.
So the alpha wolf would laugh at him? Wrong move.
Beck swung a left hook, knowing the man would dodge that, and so caught him in the kidney with a right uppercut.
Kai grunted at the connection. “Good one.”
His opponent moved so quickly, Beck could but shuffle on the snow-and ice-packed ground, his boots slipping, but he maintained stance. His adrenaline pumped as he took a fist to the jaw, and another to the gut. Still not as powerful as the faery’s punches.
Daisy’s father pushed him, and Beck lost footing on an ice slick, landing in a snowbank. He scrambled up, barreling into the other wolf. They both tumbled to the snowy ground, fists finding their mark against tender organs. The Saint-Pierres had admonished and ridiculed him for the last time. Beck’s father would have never taken such treatment. He would show Malakai Saint-Pierre who he was dealing with.
They battled it out, crashing into the boxing bag, other times rolling across the snow as fists flew and kicks connected with ribs and shins. Grunts of exertion and huffs of breath leaving pummeled lungs marked the air in puffs of chilled pain.
Beck struggled inside. He didn’t want to do this. He fought against the man he should try to impress in order to win a chance to love his daughter. Yet he had already stolen Daisy out from under her father’s care, and Kai had every right to come at him with all he had. Which is what he was doing now.
Beck landed on the packed snowbank behind him, gripping his gut. Ab muscles tight and flexing, he pushed off from the low bank, yet couldn’t quite stand, landing on his knees before the towering werewolf, who heaved and panted over him.
Depleted, his soul ached more than his muscles ever could. It was too much. He had suffered too much lately.
“I can’t do this,” Beck sputtered. Blood drooled from his mouth. His jaw had taken a bruising punishment. “Not right. But he would want me to...maybe. I don’t know anything anymore. He shouldn’t have...”
Beck heaved in a breath, and when he exhaled, he caught his palms on the boot-trampled snow before him. “He shouldn’t have left me.” His ribs ached with each inhale. But worse, his heart clenched. “I need him. I don’t know what to do anymore. I...I can’t...”
He was acting foolish before the other wolf. But he couldn’t stop the fluid stream of emotion that coiled up from his broken ribs and squeezed about his heart before spilling from his mouth.
“I loved him. I...I want him back.”
“Boy, your father was a good man.”
Beck nodded, bowing his head, his focus on the man’s rubber-soled biker boots. His father had worn the same, yet Severo’s boots had been as tattered and worn as the man had been. Beck remembered trying to walk in his father’s boots when he’d been a quarter his size, stumbling about in the heavy things until he’d toppled into a graceless sprawl. Severo would pick him up and hold him upside down from his ankles, swinging him until he begged to be tossed onto the sofa in a fit of giggles.
“He was my family,” Beck muttered, his bloodied fingers clawing into the snow. “I’ve known nothing else. I can’t accept another family just like that. It wouldn’t feel right. Please understand...”
Beck felt Kai slip his fingers through his hair. The man jerked his head back to meet his eyes. “You’re like your father, Beckett Severo. And that’s something you should be proud of.”
And when the wolf should have delivered the final punishing blow to knock Beck out and put him out of him misery, Kai did something strange. He pulled Beck up to his feet and wrapped his arms around him, crushing Beck’s face to his chest in a hug.
Beck struggled, but only initially. It was too difficult to fight now. He was exhausted. Emotionally, he was broken. Heartbroken. He had only wanted one final hug from his father. And now, he clung to Malakai Saint-Pierre and buried his face against his shirt. He didn’t cry. Tears had long left him. But his body shuddered with the pent-up pain and grief that he’d held within for too long.
It flowed out now, shaking his bones in the frigid air and against the man’s brawny frame. He couldn’t think to push away because this was stupid or nonsensical. He needed this release. So he surrendered to it.
Kai gave the back of Beck’s head a firm pat. “Give it time. You’ll come through this. I know your father was proud of you, and you won’t let him down, will you, boy?”
But he already had.
Pierced through his heart by an intangible silver-tipped arrow, Beck disengaged from Kai. “I think I have let my father down. I’ve done something terrible.”
Beck shoved away and shuffled back to fall against the snowbank that had been beaten down by repeatedly catching his sorry body during the fight. “Mister Saint-Pierre, I have to tell you something.”
“Is it about my daughter? I know you’re fucking her, boy.”
Beck winced.
“Just let me say one thing.” Kai leaned in so close that Beck wasn’t sure if the man would bite him, punch him or hug him again. “If you marry my daughter, then you’ll have no choice but to join our pack.”
“I...I...” What? “I don’t know what to say to that.”
“Just putting it out there.” Kai straightened and smacked a bloody fist in his palm. His grin wasn’t so much menacing as playful, much like Trouble’s teasing I-like-to-beat-you-bloody smile. Like father like son. Or vice versa?
“I’ve harmed a human,” Beck confessed. “I’m sure of it. It was on the news.” Sitting there, he caught his head in his palms and pulled at his hair. He looked up suddenly. The urge to spill all was irresistible. “I’m the ghost wolf.”
Kai cast him a disbelieving tilt of the head. A what-the-hell look. And then he whistled in appreciation. “Is that so? You’ve been up to some stuff. How the hell is that possible? What are you? I thought you were full-blooded werewolf?”
“I am. I...went to a faery after my father’s death. All I could think about was avenging his death.”
Kai gripped Beck by the shoulders and yanked him to his feet so he stood toe-to-toe with him. “Idiot.”
“I— No, I wanted to help, too. To keep the mortal hunters from going after the wolves. And also, to find the one who killed my father.”
“Noble. Idiotic,” Kai barked. “Faery magic demands a return boon. What did you promise in exchange for such a monster?”
“I’m not sure. I promised the faery any return favor she should request.”
Kai swore under his breath. The big wolf shoved his hands into his front pockets and turned away from Beck, eyeing
the waxing moon framed by spindly birch trees that edged the iced pond.
“My mother and father,” Kai began, “wanted children so badly they sought a faery’s help. You know a werewolf can’t have a vampire’s child?” He turned a glance over his shoulder, and Beck nodded in acknowledgment. “So they needed some faery magic. But they promised a child in exchange for that magic. Each of them, on separate occasions, made that bargain with the same faery. My mother promised her firstborn. My father promised the secondborn. Each had their own reasons. They had no idea Blu—my mother—would get pregnant with twins. It’s a long story. Suffice it to say I was born cursed and ended up battling a faery for my life and my wife, Rissa’s, life to fight that curse. You shouldn’t have gone to the sidhe, Beck.”
“I was desperate. I knew nothing about faeries save that they could work remarkable magic. I confess...” Beck glanced across the ground and swallowed hard.
“What?” Kai asked. “You asked for your father’s life back, yes?”
Beck nodded, ashamed that his desperation had led him to such a request, but still clutching at the ache in his heart that had him wishing it could have been accomplished.
“No good magic can bring back the dead,” Kai said. “You should be thankful the faery refused you that request.”
“Yes, I know that now. And yet, the hunters are scared shitless to hunt wolves now.”
“They won’t be for long. Because you can’t be the ghost wolf forever.” Kai turned and approached him. “How long does it last?”
Beck shrugged. “Not sure. It’s...”
He could confess that every time he shifted it was harder, more painful, and that he suspected it would slowly kill him. But he wasn’t about to succumb to the fear of an unknown future.
“It’ll kill you,” Kai decided for himself. The man possessed wisdom comparable to Severo’s knowledge. Beck respected him for that. “You better fix this, boy. You can love my daughter, and I suspect you might—”
“I do. I mean, we like one another—”
“Yeah? I know about Daisy and her liking men more than loving them. She’s particular that way. Well, if it’s like, then I won’t have you dying on her. Fix this mess, Beckett. Or I’ll fix you.”
